"I Don't Want Tears"

The pilot who nosed his twin-engine B-26 bomber through the skies of North Korea one night last week was as eager as any other 26-year-old on his third night mission. Four years out of West Point, he had been in Korea only three weeks. His name was 1st Lieut. James Van Fleet Jr., and he was the son of the commander of the U.S. Eighth Army in Korea.

His target for the night was Souchou, a Red rail center in northwest Korea. But fog and lowering clouds hid his objective from view. "Young Jim" changed course and headed for an alternate target.

At 3:15 a.m., his voice crackled over his radio to his base near Seoul: "Gas too low to reach secondary target. Am returning to base." It was his last message. Two days later, after Air Force and Navy planes had searched in vain among North Korea's hills, the U.S. Fifth Air Force posted young Jim and his two crewmen "Missing in Action."

Old Jim, stiffly military, got the news at an air base in South Korea. In a clipped Army bulletin, he released the text of a letter which young Jim had written to his mother before leaving stateside.

"Dear Mother," wrote young Jim in a matter-of-fact, confident and impersonal style that came naturally to the professional son of a professional soldier: "This is a letter to an Army wife. I don't want tears spilled on it! . . . Early in March, I leave for Korea. I will fly a B-26 in combat. I am the pilot. I will have a bombardier in the nose, a navigator beside me and a gunner in the rear. We will fly at night. I carry bombs and machine guns, and I will know how to use them.

"The time has come that your husband needs my support in carrying out America's fight for the right of all men to live without fear. Do not pray for me, but for my crew, who are not professional men, but civilians called upon to defend their homes ... I will do my best. It is my duty at any time."

Said his father: "There is little that I can add. My boy was fully qualified and on an assignment he had longed for ... We have unbounded hope for his safety and final return to our side. Personally, I expect to remain in Korea, where I shall rededicate myself for a greater effort."

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